The invention is related to a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and, in particular, a method for displaying on a computer screen images which are temporally related to each other, indicating the temporal relationship among them, while optionally supplying the displayed images with various levels of functionality based on their displayed size.
As well known in the art, a Graphical User Interface allows a user of a computer system to view, manipulate, etc. images on a screen in a simple and user-friendly manner. The displayed images may be graphical or textual. As complexity and functionality of computer systems increase, however, the limited display area of the computer screen becomes a highly valuable xe2x80x9ccommodity.xe2x80x9d Clearly, the display area must be utilized wisely to accommodate the increased system complexity, as correctly pointed out in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,341,466 to Perlin et al, for example.
In particular, simultaneous display of multiple images on a screen presents somewhat conflicting interests between programmers and users. While the programmers would like to utilize the full capability of the system, which may be quite complex requiring several images to be shown on the screen, they are constrained by the users"" desire to have simple and xe2x80x9cuser-friendlyxe2x80x9d displays. Understandably, users do not want to be overburdened with a hard-to-understand display even if it offers increased system functionality.
Undoubtedly, the currently popular windows environment provides the vehicle to partially reconcile those conflicting interests. A multiple image display with various functionalities is accomplished on one screen without sacrificing the xe2x80x9cuser-friendlinessxe2x80x9d of the system. Users have immediate access to several applications, for example, and can switch between them with ease and simplicity.
Nevertheless, the display of temporally-related windows is currently deficient in several aspects. Namely, the display of those windows created, i.e., xe2x80x9copenedxe2x80x9d, prior to the currently active open window is substantially hidden from view, appearing stacked behind the current window. Alternatively, multiple windows may be fully visible to a viewer, i.e., occupying substantially the same or smaller display areas on the screen for example, but fail to indicate to the viewer the existence of a temporal relationship between them.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a display of multiple images such that a temporal relationship among the displayed images is clearly visible to a viewer.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a display of multiple images having various sizes as a function of date and time of creation of each displayed image, such that a temporal relationship among the images in the displayed windows is clearly visible to a viewer.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a display of multiple pages in a document, such that the displayed pages are shown in increasingly smaller sizes as the date and time of creation of each displayed page becomes further removed in time from the most recently created page having the largest image display on the screen.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a display of multiple images having different functions or operations available to a user based on the size of the displayed window image.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a display of multiple pages in a document, such that when the displayed image is increased or reduced in size, its functionality, i.e., the displayed image operations available to a user, increases or decreases, correspondingly.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a display of multiple pages in a document, such that a page having a smaller display size has less functions available to a user than a page with a larger display size.
These and other objects, features and advantages are accomplished by a method and system for displaying images on a screen. A temporal order of the images is determined first, and one of them is designated as a first image. The images are displayed sequentially in the temporal order such that the first image has the largest size among the displayed images.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, the temporal order indicates an order in which the images have been obtained by the computer system. The sizes of those images which are older than the first image progressively change in accordance with the temporal order such that the size of an older image is smaller than the size of a newer image.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, the images are connected to each other on the screen by a curved line representing two spiral chains which are also connected to each other. The first image is located at a connecting point of the two spiral chains, wherein the images which are older than the first image are connected by one spiral chain and those images which are newer than the first image are connected by another spiral chain.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention, those images which are newer in the temporal order than the first image are not displayed on the screen.
In accordance with still another aspect of the present invention, the displayed images exhibit different sizes and are subject to a number of processing operations by a user. The number of processing operations, including either a graphical or text processing operation, available to the user to be performed on each image is dependant upon each image size: a fewer number of the processing operations are available to be performed on a smaller image than on a larger image.